Thursday, September 29

Bucky, Brisker and a Beretta

One of the briefest tenures in the Sonics' head coaching chair belonged to Bucky Buckwalter, who "led" Seattle to a 13-24 record during the 1972/73 season. Perhaps his only notable accomplishment with the club was being the last white guy to coach the Sonics until George Karl nearly 20 years later.

Anyways, Buckwalter is about to be inducted into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame (and no, smart aleck, it's not because he lost to the Blazers as the Sonics coach), and the former Portland executive regaled Matt Calkins of The Columbian with some great early 1970s hoops stories, including this classic involving the legendary John Brisker:

... a couple weeks later in Detroit, [Brisker] introduced Buckwalter to his two brothers — both of whom had just been released from prison and were seeking tickets.

Buckwalter provided them with two just behind the Sonics’ bench, but quickly regretted the decision as the brothers bombarded him with complaints about Brisker not being on the court.

“Settle down!” Buckwalter snapped. “He’ll be in in a second.”

That’s when one of the brothers pulled back his jacket and revealed a gun.

“I looked down the bench and said ‘John, get in,’ ” Buckwalter recalled. “It was about then I realized head coaching was a perilous job.”

The rest of the article makes for great reading, although, sadly, there aren't any other firearm stories to be had.